Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Philippa White, bestselling author of Return on Humanity: Leadership Lessons from All Corners of the World, challenges today’s leaders to outgrow the past, stating that “companies are working as if it’s still the Industrial Age.” As leaders come to care less about how much money a company makes and more about how they make that money, they discover many returns to purpose, including better relationships with employees and communities.

As one’s invisible purpose yields visible returns, many others may be inspired to follow suit. Anica Zeyen explains how leaders can catch and pass on their purpose by recognizing and revealing their vulnerability. The article describes how the six protagonists showcased in Zeyen’s documentary Invisible experienced purpose contagion in their own lives and looks at how featuring the documentary can facilitate similar ripples in educational institutions, consulting firms, and policy circles. As a disabled academic, activist, and documentary maker, Zeyen’s purpose contagion can reach and serve 1.3 billion people with disabilities worldwide.

Michael Messenger explains how faith and calling weaved a purposeful path that took him from a partner at a leading law practice to president and CEO of the charitable organization World Vision Canada. He reminds leaders that a sense of calling is not limited to social justice activists or nonprofit leaders. All leaders follow their calling when they see their jobs as a way to align their values, vocation, and beliefs with a deep, purpose-driven commitment to a mission, a passion for their work, and a desire to positively impact the world. Messenger reminds us that commitment grows when purpose gets deeply personal, stating: “My faith informs my calling and thereby amplifies my sense of purpose.”

In their piece, Hannes Leroy, Johannes Claeys, Mirko Benischke, and Daan Stam feature a powerful component of the leadership development programs at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, the Netherlands: the “I Will” statement, which connects individuals’ personal ambitions with the challenges of today’s society. The authors share three sequential steps of scaffolding purpose, inviting us to move from “I Am” (discover purpose) to “I Will” (commit to purpose) and arrive at “We Will” (engage others with your purpose).

In this article, Bill Fox shares his journey to purpose. The inner leader’s journey is all about leadership of oneself. Fox shifts our attention from what leaders do to who leaders strive to become in the greater service of humanity. By describing his 13 steps to scaffolding purpose (including principles he extracted from his journey, personal experiences, and pointed questions for the readers), Fox invites us to awaken our own inner leader.

Dee Corrigan, Lauren Elliott, Gethin Hine, and James McCarthy highlight The Purpose-in-Practice Community (hosted by A Blueprint for Better Business, a UK-based charity). Together, more than 200 business leaders are charting a path to putting purpose at the heart of business. Their article coaches leaders on how to drive purpose, how to become a purpose driver, and how to steer clear of purpose traps on their lifelong journey to success. The authors share key practices and set guideposts in the journey toward purpose.

Coro Strandberg urges us to radically reimagine the purpose of business. She calls for “social purpose” and blueprints the purpose economy. The article offers multiple strategies (identifying, consulting, and engaging the social purpose community; deploying purpose economy levers of change; and providing tools and resources for the business community and ecosystem actors) that can help regions and nations begin the process of architecting the purpose economy. Strandberg showcases the Canadian Purpose Economy Project, which aims to accelerate Canada’s transition to the purpose economy and explains how ecosystem builders can help social purpose companies start, transition, thrive, and grow.

Do most leaders “have” purpose? If so, how do they “hold” it as they traverse various levels (individuals, teams, organizations, partnerships, sectors, regions, countries, continents) in their quest for success? The goal of the seven articles in the first installment of this two-part Amplify series is to demystify leaders’ journey to purpose. The focus of this issue is detecting and connecting purpose at various levels across the lifespan of purpose-driven leadership. The main takeaway is that having and holding purpose helps leaders shift from surviving to thriving in an inequitable world.